The disenchantment and rebirth of aquariums: NIFREL’s cross-border experiment

#Osaka Itinerary In the cognitive framework of traditional aquariums, marine life in transparent tanks are always given some kind of specimen-like display significance. In 2015, NIFREL Osaka launched a subversive spatial revolution with the declaration of "living museum". This building, designed by Nikken Sekkei, deconstructs the narrative logic of traditional aquariums with the minimalist aesthetics of the "White Box Art Museum" and implants artistic curatorial thinking into the texture of life display. In the "Color" exhibition area, archerfish in the mangrove swamp and Yayoi Kusama's polka-dot wall form a surreal dialogue; the "Behavior" exhibition area sublimates the octopus's mimicry into dynamic art through mirror installations; and the "Waterside" exhibition area breaks the boundaries between water and land, allowing capybaras to share a rest space with tourists. This crossover is not a simple collage of scenes, but a triggering of the audience's cognitive reconstruction of the true state of organisms through environmental design. When the white-handed gibbon leaps freely in a three-dimensional space with a height of 12 meters, its life tension far exceeds any ecological description on any explanatory sign. The "Virtual Aquarium" project created by digital artist teamLab allows marine life drawn by the audience to swim in a giant projection. This participatory creation blurs the boundary between observer and observed. NIFREL's innovation lies in transforming popular science education into an immersive aesthetic experience, allowing ecological cognition to occur naturally through sensory resonance while retaining scientific rigor. This attempt to break the stereotype of species display may point to the future evolutionary direction of museum spaces - regaining the poetic possibility of understanding life at the junction of art and science.